Anselm's Discovery: A Re-Examination of the Ontological Proof for God's Existence

that it was not to be evaded.27 However, our present situation is that we have an alternative form of theism which also,
and with better right, can employ the ontological argument.
So I incline to the view that the next move is up to the
skeptics.

9. Hume

Hume makes a remarkable concession concerning the possible importance of the ontological argument: he grants that
its validity would dispose of the argument against theism based
on the evils in the world. And of course, no empirical facts
can testify against a logical necessity. Indeed, the argument
from evil itself rests on the supposed analytic truth that
Greatness must result in a world without evil. This, in turn,
means that Greatness in God implies an absolute absence of
independence or initiative of action in the creatures. For, if
they have any such independence, evil may be their doing,
for all we could know, not God's. ('They' here means creatures generally, not just human beings!) And to say that
God should, and as Great logically would, grant no freedom
in this sense is to say that a being who can and must deny all
genuine independence of action to others is better than one
who could and would foster suitable degrees of independence
in them. So far from finding this analytically true, some of us
find it analytically false. Perhaps 'omnipotence', in the sense
of a monopoly of power, an infinitely stingy denial of real
power to others, is even a mere absurdity. In any case, it

Print this page

While we understand printed pages are helpful to our users, this limitation is necessary
to help protect our publishers' copyrighted material and prevent its unlawful distribution.
We are sorry for any inconvenience.